Paintball
Paintball is a competitive team shooting sport in which players eliminate opponents from play by hitting them with spherical dye-filled gelatin capsules ("paintballs") that break upon impact. Paintballs are usually shot using a low-energy air weapon called a paintball marker that is powered by compressed air (nitrogen) or carbon dioxide. The game was initially developed in the 1980s for recreation, but now is frequently played at a formal sporting level with organized competition that involves major tournaments, professional teams, and players.23 Paintball technology is also used by military forces, law enforcement, paramilitary and security organizations to supplement military or other training. Paintball markers can play a role in riot response and nonlethal suppression of dangerous suspects. Games can be played on indoor or outdoor fields of varying sizes. A game field is scattered with natural or artificial terrain, which players use for tactical cover. Game types and goals vary, but may include capture the flag, elimination, defending or attacking a particular point or area, or capturing objects of interest hidden in the playing area. Depending on the variant played, games can last from minutes to hours, or even days in "scenario play". The legality of paintball varies among countries and regions. In most areas where regulated play is offered, players are required to wear protective masks, use barrel blocking safety equipment, and safe game rules are strictly enforced. Play it at your own risk Players: * Any number, equal to each team Things needed to play * Armor to prevent further injury * Paintball guns * Gloves * Shoes * Mask or googles * Elbow and Knee pads How to play Paintball is played with a potentially limitless variety of rules and variations, which are specified before the game begins. The most basic game rule is that players must attempt to accomplish a goal without being shot and marked with a paintball. A variety of different rules govern the legality of a hit, ranging from "anything counts" (hits cause elimination whether the paintball broke and left a mark or not) to the most common variation: the paintball must break and leave a mark the size of a US quarter or larger. Eliminated players are expected to leave the field of play; eliminations may also earn the opposing team points. Depending on the agreed upon game rules, the player may return to the field and continue playing, or is eliminated from the game completely. The particular goal of the game is determined before play begins; examples include capture the flag or Elimination. Paintball has spawned popular variants, including woodsball, which is played in the natural environment and spans across a large area. Conversely, the variant of speedball is played on a smaller field and has a very fast pace with games as brief as two minutes fifteen seconds in the (NSL) or lasting up to twenty minutes in the PSP (Paintball Sports Promotions).14 Another variant is scenario paintball, in which players attempt to recreate historical, or fictional settings; the largest being Oklahoma D-Day's World War II re-enactment. Enforcement of game rules Regulated games are overseen by referees or marshals, who patrol the course to ensure enforcement of the rules and the safety of the players.17 If a player is marked with paint, they will call him out, but competitors may also be expected to follow the honor code; a broken ball means elimination. Field operators may specify variations to this rule, such as requiring a tag to certain body locations only – such as the head and torso only.18 There are game rules that can be enforced depending on the venue, to ensure safety, balance the fairness of the game or eliminate cheating. * Masks On Even when a game isn't in progress, virtually all venues enforce a masks-on rule while players are within the playing area. More generally, within any given area of the park, either all players'/spectators'/officials' masks must be on, or all players' markers must either have a barrel block in place or be disconnected from their gas source, to ensure that a paintball cannot be fired from any nearby marker and cause eye injury. Some fields encourage players to aim away from opponents' heads during play if possible; splatter from mask hits can penetrate ventilation holes in the goggles and cause eye irritation, close-range hits to the mask can cause improperly maintained lenses to fail, and hits to unprotected areas of the face, head and neck are especially painful and can cause more serious injury.19 * Minimum distance – When being tagged, depending on the distance from where the shot was fired, a direct paintball impact commonly causes bruises. In certain areas and at close range, these impacts may leave welts, or even break the skin and cause bleeding. To decrease these risks and the severity of associated injuries, commercial venues may enforce a minimum distance rule; such as 4.5 metres (15 ft), whereby players cannot shoot an opponent if they are closer than this distance.20 Many fields enforce a modified minimum distance surrender rule; a player who advances to within minimum range must offer his opponent the chance to surrender before shooting. This generally prevents injury and discord at recreational games, however it is seldom used in tournaments as it confers a real disadvantage to the attacking player; he must hesitate while his opponent is free to shoot immediately. The act of shooting a player at close range is colloquially called "bunkering"; it happens most often when a player uses covering fire to force his opponent behind the cover of a bunker, then advances on that bunker while still shooting to eliminate the opponent point-blank.21 A tap of the targeted player with the barrel of a marker, sometimes called a "barrel tag", "Murphy" or "tap-out", is generally considered equivalent to marking them with a paintball and is sometimes used in situations where one player is able to sneak up on an opponent to point-blank range. * Hits - A player is hit if a paintball leaves a solid mark of a specified minimum size (often nickel- or quarter-sized) anywhere on the player's body or equipment. Some variations of paintball don't count hits to the gun or the pod pack, or require multiple hits on the arms or legs. Most professional fields and tournaments, though, count any hit on a person, the equipment on his person, or even objects picked up at random from the field. A grey area of "splatter" often occurs when a paintball breaks on a nearby surface and that paint deflects onto the player; this usually does not count as a hit but it can be difficult to tell the difference between significant splatter and a genuine direct hit. * Overshooting – Fields may discourage players from overshooting (also regarded as bonus balling, "ramping", "overkill", or lighting up), which is to repeatedly shoot an opposing player after he is eliminated from the game.22 It is also considered overshooting if a player knew the opponent was eliminated but continued to shoot, disregarding the safety of the opposing player and risking dangerous injury to others. * Ramping – Ramping is a feature of many electronic markers, where after a certain number of rapid shots or upon a threshold rate-of-fire being achieved by the player, the gun will begin firing faster than the trigger is being pulled. Ramping of rate of fire is prohibited or sharply limited at most paintball fields, however it is allowed in various tournament formats with specific rules governing when and how the marker may ramp.23 * Wiping – Players may attempt to cheat by wiping paint from themselves, to pretend they were not hit and stay in the game.24 If caught, "wipers" are generally called out of the game, and in recreational paintball may be ejected from the field for multiple instances of wiping. Various tournament rules state additional penalties for players or teams caught wiping, such as "3-for-1" (calling the wiping player and the nearest two players out) in PSP capture-the-flag, or a prescribed number of "penalty minutes" in XBall. * Non-contact - While paintball does involve tagging players with paintball projectiles, this is generally considered the sole point of physical contact between members of opposing teams. Players are generally prohibited from physically contacting other players, such as colliding with them, physically restraining them, and especially using fists, feet, protective gear or the markers themselves to hit other players. Fisticuffs in particular are dangerous not only to the participants but to all players on or off the field, and referees are generally trained to respond immediately and aggressively to stop the fight, and to eject and ban instigators of these fights. Strategy Player and team strategy varies depending on the size and layout of the field and the total number and experience level of players. The most basic strategy is to coordinate with the team to distribute the team members across the field roughly perpendicular to the line between starting stations to cover all potential lines of advance; a team that runs all in the same direction is easily flanked by opponents moving around the field on the opposite side. A second basic goal is to control as much of the field as possible, as early as possible, either by being the first to get to advantageous obstacles on the field or by quickly eliminating one or more opponents to reduce the number of directions each player has to watch for incoming paint. The more territory that the members of a team have behind them, the more options they have for choosing effective cover and changing position to get a good shot at one or more opponents, and because the field is of finite size, the fewer options the opposing team has. A key element of intermediate and advanced strategy is the concept of "firing lanes". These are clear lines of sight between obstacles on the field and thus potentially between opposing players on the field behind them. A lane is "occupied" if at least one player of the opposing team can fire along it, and it's "active" if any player is firing along it, friend or foe. Occupied and active lanes hinder player movement as the player risks getting hit and eliminated. Open fields with sparse cover often have long open lanes between most or all bunkers on the field, most of which will be occupied if not active. Therefore, players have to keep track of which lanes to and from their bunker become occupied by the other team, so the player can make sure the bunker is between himself and the opponent(s). This becomes harder the more occupied firing lanes there are; when most available firing lanes on the field are occupied, each team has to create cover in at least one direction using suppressing fire (rounds sent to the opponent's location designed to keep their head down more than to eliminate them). Speedball, which tends to use small open fields with relatively few obstacles, requires each player to use hundreds of paintballs in the course of a game to keep his opponents pinned down, lest he be pinned himself. Conversely, if most firing lanes on the field are clear, players on each team have greater mobility and the use of covering fire to pin an opponent is less useful as the player can stay behind cover while moving long distances, so players tend to fire less and move more to gain clear shots. Urban scenarios and woodsball fields tend to be larger and with more cover, shortening firing lanes and requiring players to move more to get good shots against their opponent. Typically, strategy is limited for casual walk-on style paintball play. Some teamwork will be seen at the beginning of the games with brief discussions on tactics and strategy, such as distributing players between bunkers and assigning defenders that will stay back and cover attackers that advance. However, mid to late game tactics tend to be limited to groups of players sticking together or doing isolated attacks rather than a coordinated sweep down the field. In team paintball tournaments, more serious planned team tactics and strategy is seen throughout each game from the opening to the endgame. Teams generally practice together and have planned tactics they can use in the tournament, and know what each of their teammates will be trying to do in various situations during the game. I hope this wiki helped you if needed to edit help to edit now!